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Dave Rawlings is finally stepping into the spotlight with Gillian Welch

Singer-guitarist Dave Rawlings is half of one of the most famous musical duos that you probably didn't know existed.

By all rights, that duo should be called Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings: They've been musical and life partners since the early '90s, co-writing and recording albums and touring together nonstop.

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Yet a lot of music fans haven't heard of Rawlings since the alt-country duo usually releases albums and performs concerts simply as "Gillian Welch."

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Gradually, that's starting to change.

In September, the pair released their second album as Dave Rawlings Machine, Nashville Obsolete. And the current tour under the Rawlings Machine banner should convince more people he's far more than second fiddle.

So why did it take so long for Rawlings to get the equal credit he's always deserved?

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Part of the blame falls directly on him. He says he didn't mind when Almo Sounds decided to release the duo's first album, Revival (1996), under Welch's name alone.

"At the time, there was this chain of female singer-songwriters having success, like Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kathy Mattea and Nanci Griffith, and the name 'Gillian Welch and David Rawlings' was ungainly,"he says. "We didn't want to think of a band name, so we were pretty comfortable calling it 'Gillian Welch,' and the record company wanted that anyway."

(Henry Diltz)

Today, as his name recognition grows, Rawlings says he's still content to be the unsung partner.

"When we put out another duet record as 'Gillian Welch,' it'll be the same story: I'm not unhappy it's gonna come out and it's 'Gillian Welch.' 'Gillian Welch' is a band name at this point, and the band has two people in it."

Co-written by the duo and produced by Rawlings, Nashville Obsolete runs the gamut from orchestral ballads such as "The Weekend" to the Dylanesque bluegrass marathon "The Trip." The album's title started out as jokey name for an imaginary store where the duo might sell old musical equipment that had fallen out of fashion in the digital age.

The store's hypothetical slogan: "If you don't need it, we've got it."

But Rawlings admits the title also applies to the way the duo continues to record with acoustic instruments, on analog tape, in traditional recording studios.

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"With the amount of change Nashville has gone through, a lot of things have disappeared," he says. "I'm not condemning the new. But we've worked and lived in Nashville for over 20 years, and as it continues to evolve, we feel a little obsolete in the face of modern country music."

As timeless as their albums are, the duo is best experienced live -- if only for the thrill of watching Rawlings lurch and jerk and play his acoustic guitar as if he were wrestling an alligator.

"Movement is such an important part of music -- you can't play the same music if you're sitting down," he says. "The motion is almost entirely a byproduct of the fact that I'm playing an acoustic guitar that sounds best in front of the microphone in a certain place, so I stand on my toes and rotate and kick the instrument forward -- but so much of it happens subconsciously: I'm just guided by a sound ... I don't even know how it comes about."

Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. the Majestic Theatre, 1925 Elm St., Dallas. $25-$30.